Hey Everyone, just a few questions regarding the Saturn 3D controller and the game, Golden Axe the Duel. Why can't the hardware read the game when a 3D controller is plugged into the system? Anyone experienced this before? Why does it happen considering that this is an issue concerning first party software and accessory...? Can't seem to find much info on this strange issue. By the way, console, controller and game are all U.S. that i'm using. I appreciate the reply.
Even when set in digital mode, way of acquiring buttons states from Saturn is different from regular pad. (I don't know why Sega decided such weird "compatibility". Maybe for costs reasons ?) Because of this, games not designed to read data from 3D pad won't work. If you really want to use your 3D pad, then developing some interface board that converts 3D digital mode informations to standard pad information should do the job ... Well, buying a standard pad should be cheaper I think "If not indicated as supported, don't expect it to work".
Well I didn't expect it to work. With that said I most certainly didn't expect the controller to boot the the system straight to the BIOS menu and not let the game start up.
Do you confirm your 3D pad is not broken and works correctly in the BIOS menu ? Maybe bios checks peripheral code in IP header in order to prevent booting games not compatible with 3D pad ? ("maybe" : I don't know)
Golden Axe won't work with the 3d pad, this is known. There are 2 ways for games to read controls: one is to poll the SMPC, and the other is to read the inputs directly with the SH2. The developer manuals say to never use SH2 direct mode. I guess Golden Axe did, which is why it doesn't work.
Thank you very much for the explaination. It's very much appreciated. Any idea if this is an issue with every region release of Golden Axe The Duel? Are there other games in the Saturn library that act this way with the 3D controller? Once again, thank you.
Someone once mentioned Thunderstrike 2 not working, but I never checked it myself. The 3d pad is not really useful on the Saturn.
I just checked the US and PAL versions of Thunderstrike 2. The game boots up but none of the buttons do anything in both digital or analog mode. I didn't bother checking the JPN version as it probably does the same. JPN version of Golden Axe does the same thing as the US version. In digital mode it will kick back out to the Saturn cd player menu. In analog mode it boots up but the buttons don't do anything. Are there any other games that are incompatible?
I think Need for Speed will go to the main menu screen and then pop up with a message that the controller is unsupported - needless to say, pressing the 3D pad buttons does not do anything in analog or digital mode.